Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Romanticism
David Stevens
P U B L I S H E D B Y T H E P R E S S S Y N D I C AT E O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F C A M B R I D G E
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRES S
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 100114211, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia
Ruiz de Alarcn 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain
Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa
http://www.cambridge.org
Cambridge University Press 2004
This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of
relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take
place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2004
Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge
Typefaces: Clearface and Mixage
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Acknowledgements
The author and publishers wish to thank the following for permission to use
copyright material:
Curtis Brown Ltd, London, on behalf of Eric Robinson for John Clare, I Am, edited
by Eric Robinson. Copyright Eric Robinson 1984; Oxford University Press for
extracts from Dorothy Wordsworth, The Grasmere Journals (18011802), edited
by M Moorman (1973), entries 22.11.1801, 24.11.01, 29.11.01, 18.3.02.
Every effort has been made to reach copyright holders; the publishers would like to
hear from anyone whose rights they have unknowingly infringed.
Contents
Time line
Introduction
1 Approaching Romanticism
11
11
12
15
18
24
28
32
36
43
49
Assignments
54
55
55
Romantic language
57
58
60
62
65
67
69
Thomas Paine
On Revolution from The Rights of Man
69
Hannah More
from The Sorrows of Yamba, or the Negro Womans Lamentation
71
William Blake
The Chimney-Sweeper (Innocence version)
73
73
The Lamb
74
The Tiger
74
75
76
Mary Wollstonecraft
A Revolution in Female Manners from A Vindication of the Rights
78
of Woman
William Wordsworth
Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey
79
Song
83
83
Dorothy Wordsworth
from The Grasmere Journals
85
87
89
90
91
94
94
95
from On Life
98
John Clare
I Am
99
John Keats
Ode on Melancholy
100
Ode to a Nightingale
101
Mary Shelley
from Frankenstein
103
105
4 Critical approaches
107
107
108
110
Feminist approaches
114
Assignments
117
118
A sense of genre
118
An appreciation of purpose
119
121
Assignments
122
6 Resources
123
Further reading
123
ICT resources
125
Glossary
126
Index
127
1 Approaching Romanticism
What are the significant social, political and cultural events and
developments of the period from approximately 1750 to 1850?
What possible meanings are there for the term Romantic in the historical
context?
What is the place of the Romantic, in any of its possible senses, in the
modern world?
APPROACHING ROMANTICISM
11
that none of these terms can be pinned down by a simple definition, because they
are all subject partly to culturally formed value systems, and partly to the
slipperiness of language itself.
Take the word imagination: does it imply a positive, creatively liberating force
without which nothing could be achieved by human beings; or does it refer to a
possibly dangerous escapist position, refusing to confront reality? Perhaps there are
elements of both in the semantic field the range of feasible meanings,
connotations and associations of the word, and the tension between the two
opposing views gives rise to interesting creative possibilities at the heart of
whatever Romanticism may be. Again, it is the exploration of such areas, rather
than their pinning down, that is at the heart of understanding, and the sense of
context is the map needed for this exploration.
What associations does the word imagination have in your mind? What would
your own definition include?
A few years later, in 1755, Dr. Johnson (17091784) decried the Romantick as
wild, improbable; false, fanciful. Later in the century, however, when the
term had become more widely used, the romance was seen more positively
especially in the context of the taste for all things gothic. The gothic author Clara
12
ROMANTICISM
APPROACHING ROMANTICISM
13
There are many insights and claims here, and the themes will be revisited
throughout this book. Worth noting, especially, is the sense of newness the
moderns and the liberating quality this newness inspires. This has implications
for the study of Romanticism generally: Romantic texts cannot go on being new
indefinitely. However, the study of Romantic artefacts may be constantly renewed,
and as a result interpretations will be modified, and creative engagement may be
perpetually refreshed. This indeed is the spirit of Romanticism: if it means
anything, it must constantly re-invent, rediscover and re-assert itself. Another
German commentator, and a contemporary of the Schlegel brothers, Friedrich
Hardenberg (17721801; known as Novalis) emphasised this quality: The world
must be romanticised. So its original meaning will again be found. To romanticise
is nothing other than an exponential heightening.
The evidence just quoted may suggest that contemporaries were aware of
something Romantic in the air. However, it would be a mistake to think of
Romanticism as anything like a coherent movement or philosophy. With
hindsight, of course, it is possible to select historical evidence to justify a particular
point of view, but this can be misleading. As Marilyn Butler, a modern critic and
historian of Romanticism, maintains, Romanticism, in the full rich sense in which
14
ROMANTICISM
The point here, however, lies in knowing what to look for: precision is likely to be
elusive, but the very diversity of Romanticism does offer potentially liberating
possibilities in its exploration. In the end, moreover, Romanticism does seem to
embody certain key characteristics; and as a historical phenomenon, as William
Vaughan puts it, whatever else is said about the Romantic movement, no one
can deny that it really did happen (from Romantic Art, 1994). So, what are these
key characteristics?
Look carefully at what Marilyn Butler and Hugh Honour have to say about
Romanticism. Do they support or contradict each other?
15
16
ROMANTICISM
The French poet Charles Baudelaire (18211867), a Romantic himself, made the
vital point that Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject, nor
in exact truth, but in a way of feeling. In order to understand this way of feeling
more profoundly, it is necessary to examine in some detail the contextual factors at
work. As a guiding principle, Marilyn Butlers insight rings true: No form is
confined to a single political message. Everything turns on how it is used, and on
how the public at a given time is ready to read it. (from Romantics, Rebels and
Reactionaries, 1981). And the reading must be in the fullest, suggestive sense of
the word: not only in the reading of printed text, but also in the ways we might
read a situation, for example, or read someones character.
Examine again the various key characteristics of Romanticism listed above, and try
relating them to modern culture and the arts. Aim to come to some sort of
judgement as to whether the examples chosen from modern culture meet any,
some or all of the tentative criteria for Romanticism.
You may wish to look at examples from:
music across a range of styles and genres
films and television drama
APPROACHING ROMANTICISM
17
18
ROMANTICISM
APPROACHING ROMANTICISM
19
ROMANTICISM